You Can School Me After
by Baxley McTedders
Summary: Gail x Holly AU Prompt: work at an aftercare program together. They've never spoken to one another. Something happens. They spend some time with one of the kid. "Date? Or non-date?" that's the question.


"Excuse me," Holly said politely as she tried to squeeze into the space between the new girl and a bookshelf in the classroom. "I just have to..."

Holly pointed to the stack of worksheets that had been placed there for easier access. The problem was New Girl was blocking her. So much for easy.

"You mind if I get..." Holly started to ask, momentarily distracted when a pair of blue eyes flicked up her way. "...those...?"

"Oh yeah, okay," the woman moved, but only a couple of steps. "Knock yourself out."

Holly licked her lips before taking another step, "Uh, thanks." She reached up and grabbed the material, then slowly made of point of straightening the stack, stretching the moment. "So, you just started?"

"Yeah."

Holly stuck out one hand, "I'm Holly."

The blonde looked over the hand. She made no move to shake it all, instead she came back with a, "Congratulations."

Holly's lips turned downward as she slow slid her hand into her pocket. "You don't have a name?"

"Do I look like a stray puppy?" the blonde snarked. "Yes, I have a name. Of course, I have a name."

"And...?"

"You haven't earned it yet."

"Haven't earned it?" Holly's eyes narrowed. "Are you special or something?"

"Yeah," she said back. "Kinda."

"Well," Holly was obviously bothered by this, but suddenly she was more curious than anything else. "How am I going to introduce you to the kids? You have a plan for that?"

"Listen, Molly," the blonde said, "You can introduce me as Captain Spiral the Dark Lord of Disaster for all I care. I won't be around very long anyway, so it won't matter."

"It's Holly."

"What?"

"My name," Holly pointed to her chest, "is Holly. With an 'H.'"

"That's what I said."

"You said Molly," Holly said. "My name is Holly."

"It's like the same thing," the blonde shrugged. "Whatever."

"Not the same."

"Practically."

"No, not practically," Holly argued. "It's not the same at all."

"Holly," the girl said. "There. Ya happy?"

"Yes, Dark Lord," Holly replied."Thrilled."

Over the course of the next hour, Holly must have rolled her eyes and pfft'd at least eight times. While she had engineered an hour of learning by way of a cute little science experiment, Dark Lord had her own gathering of kids that were folding the worksheet on said experiment into paper airplanes. It would have been completely unacceptable if they hadn't started a tournament and Dark Lord hadn't actually been trying to teach them a bit about aerodynamics.

Although, several loud, obnoxious calls of, "It's in the wrist, Joey!" wasn't exactly hands-on.

It wasn't long before Holly had lost the attention of even the most studious kids as they had been lured over to the Dark side.

"This is actually fun!" Joey screeched as he ran to collect his plane. "Thanks Gail!"

Holly sighed at how the girl had taken over her program before realizing Joey had just said her name.

"Gail?"

"What?" Gail answered, then realized her error. "Crap."

"You told them your name?"

"They're cool," Gail said. She gave Holly a quick head shake, "You...not so much."

"Listen, Gail," Holly looked suspicious, "If that is indeed your real name. This isn't just some babysitting service, alright. We like to keep it structured. We want the kids to learn something while they're here."

"They're learning plenty," Gail said, picking up a plane. "Twenty minutes ago that chubby kid was throwing a flat piece of paper in the air. Now, he's flying a mini 747. His dreams have come true."

Gail had a great argument. She may have been winning actually. That was right up until little Joey took the mini 747 right in the eye.

He went down like a ton of bricks. Actually, he went down like 47 pounds of bricks, grabbing at his face and screaming at the top of lungs.

Holly was on him in a flash, checking for blood or maybe a dangling eyeball.

"Alright, alright," Gail said, trying to get in between the kid and Holly who was patting and pushing on his head without any real point. "He took a piece of paper to the eye, it's not like his brain is falling out."

Gail swatted Holly's hands out of they way and looked hard at Joey's eye. "Still there. Still green. Do you know your name?"

"Joey," he answered.

"Where are you?"

"School."

"Who's the president?"

Joey shrugged, "Batman."

"Good enough for me," Gail nodded. "Cured."

"What if he has delayed blindness or something?" Holly asked. "Is that a thing? Should I google it?"

The tone in her voice upset Joey all over again and Gail patted his shoulder.

"It's just an eye ouchie, dude," Gail said soothingly. "We'll get you a patch. You'll be fine."

"You can't just give him an eye patch!" Holly said, on edge. "We need to get him to the nurse."

"Joe," Gail snapped high in the air. "Can you see my fingers?"

"Yeah," the boy answered, looking up.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Two," Joey answered.

Gail wiggled the two fingers in Holly's face. "He's fine."

"I'm going to take him just in case," Holly insisted.

"Fine, but you can't leave me alone-"

"You can handle it, Dark Lord."

* * *

When Holly and Joey got back, the room was empty save for Gail. She looked to be asleep as she was lying on her back across the large desk in the corner.

When she heard them get closer, Gail opened one eye. She did her best not to laugh at poor, little Joey, who in fact did get an eye patch.

"Shiver me timbers!" Gail said to the little guy.

"Huh?" he asked, pushing it above his eye to rest on his brow.

"Nothing," she shook her head. "Kids," she muttered.

"Where did they all go, Gail?"

"I sent them away."

"You what?"

"Relax," Gail said. "Geez, it was time for them to go. I got their little backpacks together and sent them out into the world."

Holly checked the large clock in the room. It was late. "Oh."

Gail pointed at Joey, "So is your mom coming to get you?"

"I walk to my friends' house, usually," Joey said as he looked helplessly around the room. "But..."

"That's okay," Holly said. "We'll call her, okay."

"How far away do you live, Joe?"

"Not very far."

"He's not going alone," Holly told Gail. "So don't even think about it."

"I wasn't even going to suggest that!" Gail exclaimed. She looked at Joey and winked, "I was totally going to suggest that."

"I have her number," Holly assured Joey as she leafed through her contact info. "I'll just give her a call..."

"She's giving her a call," Gail narrated needlessly as Holly picked up her phone. "She's dialing...it's ringing..."

"Hi, there, Ms. Johnson, how are you?" Holly said into the device a couple seconds later. "This is Holly Stewart at your son's school. I'm actually one of the supervisors at the afterschool program...no, it's not just like a babysitting service...well, we try to teach...yes, it is free...I'm not collecting any money...I didn't mean to interrupt your work day, it's just that...I understand that...well, Joey has gotten a minor little, teensy weensy scratch on his eye and the nurse has given him a patch just for precaution-"

Gail grabbed the phone out of her hand, "Listen, lady," she said without preamble. "Your kid got Jack Sparrow'd, argh. You're going to have to come pick him up. I don't mind sending him on foot, but Holly Hopeful over here has _feelings_ about it. So, please, come on so I can get back to my life and Holsy Wolsy can go back to studying for what I only assume is going to a be a very successful career as a pharmacist...that's fine...awesome, bye."

Gail hung up and handed the phone back to Holly.

"What the hell, Gail?"

"She'll be here as soon as she can."

* * *

Gail watched the seconds pass on her watch. "This woman must work in Vancouver."

"She probably had to find a supervisor and then clock out and then drive across town-"

"Don't need the play-by-play."

Holly leaned slightly to catch sight of Joey. He was working quietly on an assignment from the day, eye patch twisted around to the side of his head.

"So, he was alright?" Gail asked.

"He's fine," Holly told her. "Nurse said the scratch was on eyelid. She just gave him the eye patch because he asked about it. Figured it would make him feel better."

"K..." Gail said, going back to being disinterested.

"Why a pharmacist?" Holly asked suddenly. When Gail didn't immediately answer, she said, "Just curious."

Gail, who was still lying across the teacher's desk that Holly was seated at, lifted her head slightly, "You're obviously one of those nerdy types...in a non-threatening kind of way."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Gail's head rested back on the table and she sighed, "Nothing. You look like a pharmacist."

"Nobody looks like a pharmacist."

"My pharmacist does," Gail said. "His name is Titus Heplar. Say that backwards."

"No," Holly shook her head. "That's a generalization. Nobody looks like a certain occupation."

"He does, though," Gail insisted. "One look and you just _know_."

"That's very improbable."

"Reconfigure your probability worksheet, 'cause it's true."

"It's ridiculous that you would even say that."

"It's ridiculous that you would argue about that," Gail commented. "But here we are. You, protecting your fellow pharma-friend and me, bored as a chimp on a porch swing."

"You've acted bored all day," Holly said.

"I have been."

"If you hate it so much, why are you even here?"

"It's not like I want to be," Gail said. "Believe me."

"Then why?"

Gail sat up, letting her feet bang against the side of the desk. She looked to make sure that Joey was still occupied. She whispered, "I stole some stuff."

"You stole some stuff?"

"SHH!" Gail motioned for her to quiet down.

Holly leaned in, her elbows on the surface. "What do you mean? Shoplifting?"

"Yeah," Gail said. "I stole some stuff. Got caught. Got a reduced sentence of 20 hours of community service because my parents are cops. They gave me the lightest duty they could find."

"Wow," Holly frowned. "You don't...look like a shoplifter."

"That's a generalization," Gail said immediately. "Nobody _looks_ like a shoplifter."

"I..." Holly leaned back in her chair. "I'm surprised, that's all."

"I'm an attention seeker," Gail replied. "At least, that's what my mom says. She's probably right. Whatever. This one really blew up in my face, though. They made me move back home."

"Ouch."

"Yeah," Gail blew out a breath. She looked at Holly, "So what's your story?"

Holly smiled, "Extra credit for Child Psychology."

"So not a pharmacist?"

"Not a pharmacist."

"Sorry! Sorry!" the voice of a woman broke up their conversation. "Traffic!"

"It's okay," Holly stood and made her way over. "He was just working on his homework."

Gail hopped off the desk and helped Joey put his stuff together, giving him a hair ruffle as he pulled his eye patch back over his eye.

"You look cool," Gail said to him, noticing that Holly seemed to be filling his mom in.

"Thanks."

"I had fun today," Joey told her. "Ms. Holly is fun, but you're more fun."

"I know, kid," Gail agreed. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay."

"Okay."

As Joey and his mom left, Gail turned to face the woman she had just met a couple hours ago. "So..."

Holly's brow raised, "Yeah?"

"Do you like coffee?"

"Are you planning to steal it?"

"Maybe."

"How 'bout I buy," Holly offered. "You can tell me all about the panty hose that you pull over your face for your big jobs."

"It was a bottle of hair wax!" Gail said. "Hardly a big deal."

"For that cowlick?" Holly asked as she reached up to push Gail's misplaced hair down.

Gail self-consciously did it herself. "I took a nap."

"Uh huh."

"You're not going to keep asking how I feel about shit, are you?"

Holly bit her lip, keeping the smile at bay. "Maybe..."


End file.
